Dilemma on the Entrepreneurial University Ideal : The Prevailing Academic Tensions

The fact that universities have become complex organisations characterised by multiple missions including teaching, research, and entrepreneurship agenda served as a starting point for this enquiry. This study strives to offer a deeper insight into the views of the academics pertaining to the creation of an entrepreneurial university ideal within the context of a research university. The underlying complexities in achieving this mission were extracted from a series of semistructured interviews conducted among academicians spanning the diverse disciplines within the university. The findings revealed a vast array of definitions given to the concept of an entrepreneurial university that ranges from the soft spectrum to the hard spectrum of entrepreneurial activities. This study adds value to the existing literature through the identification of dilemmas surrounding the creation of the entrepreneurial university that encompass challenges related to the academic resistance, internal factors and social capital issues. It is concluded that the right balancing between teaching, research and entrepreneurship is crucial to ensure that learning institutions do not digress from their core functions. Effective links between university, industry and government could assist to fast-track the transition from the traditional university to the entrepreneurial university concept.